The Florida Division of Elections is sending three employees to St. Lucie County on Wednesday to try to figure out how 799 votes disappeared in Sunday’s partial recount of the close, nationally watched congressional race between U.S. Rep. Allen West and Democrat Patrick Murphy.

“We are concerned whenever there is a question about the accuracy of results,” Florida Department of State spokesman Chris Cate said in an e-mail this afternoon. “We are sending three employees, including the bureau chief, from the Bureau of Voting Systems Certifications, to assess the tabulation process in St. Lucie County.”

ST. LUCIE COUNTY — Elections Supervisor Gertrude Walker Tuesday admitted mistakes were made election night when uploading results from the last three days of early voting, blaming human and machine errors.

"I'm not perfect, neither is my staff," Walker said during a Tuesday evening press conference.

Out of 94 precincts, the first 40 — most of them in Fort Pierce — weren't counted at all and the last 54 — mostly in Port St. Lucie and the county — were counted twice, which explains why city votes increased and county votes decreased after the Nov. 11 retabulation of the votes from Nov. 1-3.

There were 3,635 counted twice and 1,953 not scanned at all.

The Nov. 11 retabulation corrected the error, Walker said.

"I'm confident that every vote has been counted accurately," Walker said.

"The facts are beginning to emerge about Election Night in St. Lucie County: "They’re painting a very chaotic scene, we’ve heard that before, but we’re learning more details about the chaos. She said they had trouble with 5 disks that they couldn’t upload the information. It’s not that they weren’t uploadable, they were actually blank, so what they did on election night, they got the ballots out, they got the ballot reader out and started stuffing 26,000 ballots into the reader to try to make sure they got some results out in an expedient manner. "

ALLEN WEST BEST ON THE GROUND: On the phone with Gary Angelo Galiano - 304 Ballots they found in a box somewhere PLUS AT LEAST another 304 more now. The public is going on, back and forth, attorneys, etc, there is still a box of over a 1000 ballots still missing they are "trying to find" EVERYONE IS SCREAMING and YELLING AND ARGUING, it is flawed and out of control. The state representative has recommended a FULL RECOUNT but the canvassing authority has to approve that.

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Stuart, FL – West for Congress campaign manager Tim Edson released the following statement regarding Patrick Murphy’s lawyers’ attempt to get the 19th Circuit Court Judge to disallow the retabulation of early votes agreed to by the St. Lucie County Canvassing Board:

“In a last-ditch effort to suppress the vote, Murphy’s lawyers submitted sloppy and incomplete papers to the Court this morning to try to strong-arm the judge into preventing today’s retabulation already underway. The Murphy team’s motion is procedurally and substantively lacking. With every action attempted, Murphy demonstrates a complete lack of respect and utter disregard for the voters of St. Lucie County.

Murphy’s efforts bring to mind the dark times in our nation’s history when politicians tried to manipulate the law to suppress the votes, and we are appalled by Murphy’s apparent contempt for the voting rights of citizens to have their ballots accurately and fairly tabulated.

Murphy knows there are votes that have not been counted, but he’s taking legal action to ensure the results are certified anyway. Perhaps the Justice Department should investigate Murphy’s attempt to steal himself a seat in Congress at the expense of the voters in St. Lucie County.”

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with only 304 votes left to count, the operation has been ordered to "shut down". Apparently the mall where the re-count is taking place has ordered everyone out because the alarm will go off! (What...there is no one there who is SMART ENOUGH to re-set the time on the alarm?) In any case, they are asking everyone to come back tomorrow to count the remaining votes!

UPDATE ALLEN WEST - I asked, how is the alarm being automaticity set, when you guys were here until 2 am on election night? Their response to me.. "We are closing." Sheriff then asked me leave...

Gary Angelo Galiano - I think I figured it out State law says by 12 it has to be certified Murphy tried in court today to get the previous account certified he failed. State law says if you do not make the deadline you must certify the previous count!!!!!!

THEY ARE TRYING TO STALL THIS PROCESS TO GIVE THE RACE BACK TO MURPHY!!!!!

Allen West’s campaign is ready to “go to war” over a recount as new numbers reveal more ballots cast than voters.

The race for Florida’s 18th Congressional district has taken an ugly turn, with charges of incompetence, illegal activity and possible fraud on the part of local election officials. Democratic challenger Patrick Murphy has declared victory with an apparent 160,328 votes to West's 157,872. However, serious questions arose immediately about the integrity of the vote count, especially in St. Lucie County. On election night incumbent Republican Allen West had maintained a district-wide lead of nearly 2000 votes until St. Lucie County Supervisor of Elections Gertrude Walker inexplicably “recounted” thousands of early ballots, resulting in 4,400 vote shift to the challenger. Observers on the scene say the process is biased and the election results are fatally compromised. Mr. West is asking a court to impound the ballots and order a recount.

Jeffrey Scott Shapiro, a volunteer lawyer for the West campaign, told the Washington Times he is “starting have serious concerns about what is going on.” Mr. Shapiro noted that he is not speaking officially on behalf of the campaign but as a first hand witness seeking to get the facts on the record.

“We are not getting to observe the vote count,” he said. Mr. Shapiro has been overseeing the process at the Riveria Beach vote tabulation center. Temporary workers are helping the local staff oversee the count of absentee ballots, those damaged by voting machines, and ballots in which the three pages have become separated. They are making new ballots to replace the damaged ones, and are required to mark them with the same votes. Florida law allows observers to be present but they are being blocked from making sure the ballots are marked accurately.

Jeffrey Scott Shapiro, a volunteer lawyer for the West campaign, told the Washington Times he is “starting have serious concerns about what is going on.” Mr. Shapiro noted that he is not speaking officially on behalf of the campaign but as a first hand witness seeking to get the facts on the record.
“We are not getting to observe the vote count,” he said. Mr. Shapiro has been overseeing the process at the Riveria Beach vote tabulation center. Temporary workers are helping the local staff oversee the count of absentee ballots, those damaged by voting machines, and ballots in which the three pages have become separated. They are making new ballots to replace the damaged ones, and are required to mark them with the same votes. Florida law allows observers to be present but they are being blocked from making sure the ballots are marked accurately.

A physical barrier had been erected making it impossible for the observers to see what was going on. After repeated objections, the observers were allowed to stand behind the people reproducing the ballots. But then the ballot workers blocked their view.“Half of the people reproducing the ballots are crowding together,” Mr. Shapiro said,“to make it impossible for anyone to see what they are doing.” He added that “there is a sense that since they spend so much time obstructing our view they are not reproducing [the ballots] correctly.”

An elderly man who stood up to try to get a better look at the ballots was ordered to sit down. When he asked why, Palm Beach County Elections Supervisor Susan Bucher called a sheriff’s deputy to have him escorted out of the building. Team West volunteer Ellen Snyder has also faced the wrath of the supervisory staff.“They screamed at me twice” for asking questions she said, and threatened to have her removed.

Critical questions are also being raised about the estimated 8,000 military absentee ballots, These ballots could decide the election but were only picked up on Wednesday. They are being counted in an area that is off-limits to observers, but no explanation has been given why. Unlike the damaged ballots, the military ballots are not being reproduced but only counted. Yet from a distance Ms. Snyder saw a worker marking them. When she tried to bring this to the attention Mrs. Bucher’s assistant she was ignored. Another observer saw four military ballots in a row being peremptorily invalidated with no explanation. When Ms. Snyder tried to ask Mrs. Bucher a question about what was happening “she looked like she wanted to spit she was so mad. She is very hostile.”

Mrs. Bucher has been a problem throughout the process. When responding to a court order to open polls to early voters on the Sunday before the election, she only informed local Democrats. Republicans only heard about it later, and not from her. During the week she told Republican observers that the vote count was going to be ended and they did not have to show up. But when Mrs. Snyder came anyway she found the counting had continued. On Friday she ordered ballot workers to reproduce some ballots that were already reproduced. No clear explanation for this was given. An online video shows Mrs. Bucher rudely refusing to answer questions posed by local reporter Michele Kirk about the propriety of the vote count.